Of the first generation of Indian modernists of 1940's, Nirode Majumdar is remembered for his sensitive economy of pictorial means and his rootedness in the pictorial tradition of Bengal, which he harmonized with the European modernist composition.
He had his first education under Kshitindranath Majumdar, student of Abanindranath Tagore, at the Indian Society of Oriental Art in Calcutta, where he came into close contact with Abanindranath....
Read MoreOf the first generation of Indian modernists of 1940's, Nirode Majumdar is remembered for his sensitive economy of pictorial means and his rootedness in the pictorial tradition of Bengal, which he harmonized with the European modernist composition.
He had his first education under Kshitindranath Majumdar, student of Abanindranath Tagore, at the Indian Society of Oriental Art in Calcutta, where he came into close contact with Abanindranath. After he finished his course Nirode Mazumdar was awarded the Norman Blount Memorial Award for his artistic skill.
Along with the new generation of modernists such as Subho Thakur, Pradosh Das Gupta, Rathin Maitra, Prakrishna Pal and Paritosh Sen, Nirode Majumdar founded the Calcutta Group in 1943. On a French government scholarship he studied in Paris at the academy of the celebrated French government scholarship he studied in Paris at the academy of the celebrated French artist Andre Holland to learn engraving. In 1951, he participated in group show held at the India House in London, and worked for sometime as the curator of the art gallery of the India House, where he met and married Margarite, a French artist who was then living in London. In 1955, Nirode returned to Paris, and after ten years he returned to Calcutta in 1967. In Europe he befriended many writers and artists like Constantin Brancusi, Georges Braque, and the French novelist Jean Gennet.
His first solo show in Calcutta was organised by the Calcutta Group in 1944, and at the Gallerie Barbizon in Paris he had his solo show in 1957. His paintings are mostly of mural dimension, and he gradually moved towards the subject matter of the Tantric Shakti concept - the image of the Devi. One particularly characteristic feature of the art of Nirode Mazumdar is that he pictorially developed a single concept in a series of canvases.
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